Whew...a busy day.

We left the house at 5:20am this morning, to arrive at Stony Knoll at 7:00am to start picking grapes.  Luckily, there was a break in the rain right when we arrived, and didn't start back until we finished.   We were only picking grapes for maybe 15 or 20 minutes.  It is so much fun, but it always seems too short!  I don't think the rain we got the day before will affect the grapes, cause I remember reading somewhere, or maybe I was told this, it takes about 24 to 48 hours for the vines to suck the water up from the soil and start feeding it into the grapes.  Considering the zip code Stony Knoll was in didn't start getting any rain until last night, we should be good.

Anyway, we drove back home, and started pressing the grapes.  That took several hours, and a lot of energy and elbow grease.  That process always wears both of us out.  Once you are reaching the bottom, it takes a lot of muscle power to move the rachet press down one more level.  We were rewarded with 8 gallons of juice.  I treated the juice with Potassium Metabisulfite. 

After pressing, we put the buckets of juice in the chest freezer.  I didn't take any readings on the juice yet, I figured I would do that after we thaw it out.

So, nothing more to be done until next week, when we return from Atlanta.   

Well, I just spoke with Van Coe of Stony Knoll Vineyards.  I'll be picking grapes this Wednesday for this year's Chardonnay.  I just want to record the numbers he gave me in the winelog.

Brix = 22^o
pH = 3.41
TA = 0.685

This year, since we will be going to Dragon*Con the day after picking, I will be chilling/freezing the must after I press the Chardonnay grapes.  When we get back from Atlanta, I'll start the process of fermentation.

Today I received my grape vines!  I am storing them in the basement until this weekend.  I ordered 12 Cabernet Franc vines, and 12 Chardonnay vines.  I have looked forward to this for a while, in fact, it is a large part of the reason why I wanted to move to North Carolina, to grow my own grapes to make wine with.  I've got a plan for my trellis construction (which can actually be done after the vines are planted), and I'll probably be working on that a little this weekend, and maybe finishing it up next week.  These vines are already grafted onto rootstock, as ever since the 1800s you have to do that, due to a little bug called Phylloxeria.  Plus, the rootstock I chose is best for clay soils, so it will be good for North Carolina.

On other winemaking notes, we still haven't bottled the 2007 Chardonnay yet, but I'm sure we'll be doing that sometime in the month of April.

Yesterday we racked the Chardonnay into a new carboy.  Interestingly enough, the lees in the original carboy were "cemented" down on the bottom by crystalized tartaric acid.  It made the process very easy, and prevented the lees from getting stirred up, since at this point I didn't want them in the wine anymore.  I used the wine from the extra gallon jug to fill up the carboy, and transferred the remaining wine in the gallon jug to a 1.5 liter bottle and a 750ml bottle.  I think we're going to be tasting the 750ml bottle as time goes on while we wait for the remaining.  So far, it is really good, I might add some citric acid to make it have more of a crisp flavor.  I'm impressed that I haven't messed it up so far.